maybe next year

yesterday was laneway festival. the lineup has just been plain shit for the past 2 years after the awesome first one back in 2011. when this year's lineup was announced a few months ago, i went to do some research on youtube and just as i had suspected and feared, the popular acts were the ones i disliked the most.

alt j! gotye! even of monsters and men, initially i thought they were ok but after i heard this song, i started to feel like the girl's singing was kinda like an annoying dog yelping randomly, after which i could never get over it. my friend was hyping up tame impala, but i listened to their coachella full set and i had might as well have been listening to white noise.

my friends were asking me to go and i was still considering. maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all? in 2011 i wasn't into most of the bands but i went with an open mind (i was only really interested in warpaint and they were the first to play, basically i had nothing to look forward to after them), and it was surprisingly entertaining and memorable.

then i thought of last year and i knew i wouldn't be going. at one point during m83, i standing near the front feeling so bored and i turned around only to see the entire crowd going wild, jumping up and down. what in the fuck? imagine that feeling and amplify it by all the bands i mentioned above, and my choice was obvious.

ultimately i still ended up there at night with 2 of my friends though, just to hang around and check out the new location and the million cute girls attending. we were approached by 2 indonesians who wanted to sell us tickets because their friends missed their flight. we managed to haggle it down to $20 each from the original $148 (awwww yissss, but 9 out of 14 bands had already played).

so we went in just in time to catch my favourite... ALT J. faced with no other alternative (lol pun), i tried my very best to enjoy their songs. in the end their songs were quite ok, up to the point where the fucker started singing, and then it became every bit as grating as they were in the goddamnawful youtube video. and the most disturbing thing was they had quite a lot of fans there.

after that there was i think yeasayer (zzz), bats for lashes (quite nice), tame impala (nothing special, i hate my friend for hyping them all week long), and lastly, GOTYE. they were alright and i didn't really have much expectations since my original bias stemmed from their stupid ass band name and not their music. by then it was already past 12 and many people were just waiting for them to play their one hit song so that they could go home.

they played their song and true enough, people started departing and so did we. all in all it was ok for $20, definitely nowhere near worth the $148 ticket price. the main problem for the past 2 years, shitty bands notwithstanding, is that in the evenings the organisers chose to put on these bands that are just nothing special and play some music that no one particularly gives a fuck about.

the bands need to be more powerful and catchy to bring up the energy level of the crowd, especially after such a long day in the hot sun. bands with music that is easily enjoyable even to those who are not fans of the bands, which is often the case for such festivals.

it just seems like such a shame that so much time and effort was put in, only to end up with a sub-par experience. sure, many people would say it was enjoyable, but was it fantastic or amazing? i don't think so.

ccIII

here's another example of an album being better than the sum of its parts.

i didn't have high hopes when i first saw that crystal castles had released a new album within what felt to me like a short period of time.

their 2 previous albums had some hugely popular hit songs (listen to celestica, for example) but also a lot of noisy shitty songs that appeared out of nowhere and seemed to serve no purpose. the albums seemed to be just made of random songs thrown together and everything was all over the place.

like whenever i listened to crystal castles II, the second track was celestica, one bloody amazing song, and it was followed by doe deer, one bloody awful and noisy shit song that would without fail, make me shut off the entire album.

it was so bad that i think i've made it past track 3 only less than a handful of times.

so this new album, i found it on youtube and played it one night. i figured i would identify the hit songs and skip past all the shitty ones that would inevitably appear.

therefore it came as a bit of a surprise that there were no hit songs that caught my ear immediately. it was a bigger surprise that there were no shitty songs too! the entire album seemed to tie together very well and felt much stronger than the previous ones.

it reminded me a little of the xx's album coexist, which i wrote about late last year. bright and coherent and somehow it feels better that there are no obvious hit songs that would tend to cause you to anticipate their arrival while ignoring the other songs.

cool story bro

when i was 5, one night i saw my classmate acting in the 9pm chinese drama serial, except that my 5 year old classmate was a grown man.

wtf? my young mind simply couldn't comprehend how this classmate managed to grow so big for the show and yet remained normal back in school. but this guy looks exactly like my classmate!

the next day in school i saw him and he was still the same little boy, but hell he looked exactly the same as that guy on tv!

that night i saw him on tv again and i told my mother, wow this guy looks exactly like my classmate that i wondered how he became an old man suddenly.

my mother thought i was telling a tall tale so she replied yah, you see this small boy on tv, he looks like my colleague too. my colleague turned into a small boy.

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!! i was telling her a true story and yet she was saying bullshit to me. yes my 5 year old mind could comprehend this.

anyway the reason i'm telling you this story that happened 20 years ago is that this actor just boarded my bus and is standing beside me now.

funny thing is i was just thinking about this incident a few days ago and boom! here he is. he still looks the same now, like he haven't aged much.

wait i just thought of this - what if this guy is not the actor, but he's actually my classmate all grown up? that would be weird alright.

ok he's sitting beside me now. he's wearing a green jacket like the one tiger woods wears after he wins golf tournaments.

he's definitely the actor and not my classmate. he was never famous but always appeared on dramas acting as the bad guy, a little bit girly too. stopped seeing him on tv many many years ago.

it's so weird that this guy is linked to my life in such a completely strange manner.

come again another day

i thought it was rather lovely that it rained non-stop throughout november and december. it rained so much that i only counted 4 dry days, but there could have been rain in other parts of the island.

the big thunderstorms were my favourite, and i also liked it when it was overcast and drizzling the entire day. it feels nice to be on the bus or by a window, looking out into the pouring rain with the roar of raindrops in my ears.

it also reminded me of my childhood days, when the weather actually followed patterns, and every year it would rain heavily during the year-end school holidays. while it was pouring outside, i would gather my equipment and start building my fort.

mattresses for the roof, pillows to make walls, blanket on the floor, the bolster was my cannon, and of course no one was allowed to come in.

there were some downsides though, like when i needed to go out and it was raining bricks outside, or when my soccer games were disrupted by the weather. but all these were a small price to pay for the 2 months of glorious rain.

then the new year came and *poof* the killer sun was out in full force and there was a day that was actually the hottest january day ever recorded. where the hell did all the rain go?

thankfully the transition towards sunny days is much smoother now, with occasional rain and clouds to tamper things a little, otherwise i could just wither and die.

vroom

i always shudder when i hear my girl friends say they want to buy a vespa. i've heard this from quite a number of them to date.

most of the time i try to humour them if i know they're just saying this without any true intention, but when shit gets serious i'm like HELL NO.

i struggle to explain to them the dangers as they seem unable to grasp this. i don't think any of them knows just how much danger riding involves.

all that goes through their minds is "but it's sooo cuuute!" it's cute and slow (not slow, just what they think) and this somehow makes them think it's safe. it's not.

honestly speaking, i fear for my life when there are female drivers near me while i'm riding. they can somehow contrive to come up with the most inexplicable shit on the road that would scare the shit outta me.

i once thought that female riders would be worse, but strangely they all seem quite alright. now i think the bad ones are all dead, because the road doesn't let you off just cos you're a girl riding a cute scooter.

the sad thing is, i have little doubt in my mind that these friends would be among the dead ones. most of them are the kind of girl that would freeze up, close their eyes and scream when something scary happens.

not exactly the best thing to do while riding at speeds that would kill you, and with brainless drivers left and right. just one wrong move is enough.

"you WILL die in a horrible accident if you ever buy a vespa." do you think it would be rude of me to tell this straight to them?

it's the harsh truth. rude, yes, but when i try to put it across subtly, no one ever seems to get it (but it's sooo cuuute!)

trust me, i've been riding for over 3 years and i know YOU WILL DIE A HORRIBLE DEATH.

rolling in the deep

happy new year it's now time for me to find some employment. yesterday i was speaking to a friend and it seems that he has already accepted the idea that all jobs are boring and sucky, and that one day he will work in a boring and sucky job.

in fact this appears to be the case with many people, it's just a part of life to them. but you'll be spending the bulk of your time at work, and if it is shit, then your life is automatically gonna be shit too, isn't it? and why would anyone want their lives to be shit?